‘Spidey’ Catches Competition Just Like Flies - Weeks 11 & 12

Only once in Summer Movie Pool history has a Spider-Man film not finished in the Top 5. The film that didn’t, 2014’s The Amazing Spider-Man 2. Yes, the film we all like to pretend didn’t exist as it was mostly a 500 Days of Spidey rom-com with Andrew Garfield and Emma Stone hemming and hawing through their lines in so many on-again/off-again scenes we just wanted them off. Still, even that film ended up #6 for the season. That’s a pretty remarkable run for a friendly neighborhood Spider-Man, so it’s only fitting that people continued to come out in droves when he took his act out on the road.

Spider-Man: Far From Home opened to a huge 5-day/6-night $185.1 million holiday opening. Outside wasn’t the only place fireworks were happening. It’s hard to compare this debut with Spider-Man: Homecoming as that started on a normal July weekend, yet that film was at $144 million after five days. If anyone thought people’s superhero appetite was full after Avengers: Endgame, remember, there’s always room for Jell-O.

Spidey continued to stick in theater-goers minds its second weekend, swinging in another $45.4 million for a total of $274.6 million so far. Anyone who picked Spider-Man: Far From Home to make the Top 5 this year is definitely having their “Peter Tingle” going off right now!

Then again, was Spider-Man’s Week 2 success based on the property and actually making an entertaining film… or was it because Hollywood literally took the weekend off? Look, I get how there have been a lot of underperforming films this season, but fans aren’t going to go to films when studios aren’t even trying.

Case in point: Stuber. A typical “Ha Ha-They’re-So-Different” action buddy-comedy with Batista and Kumail Nanjiani. While Batista is a true 2000’s WWE legend, in movie terms he was fifth-billed in Guardians of the Galaxy behind the “voices” of Bradley Cooper and Vin Diesel (who only said three words to boot… “I am Groot!”). There’s been no bridge from supporting player to “star” with Batista. It’s like telling people you were going to see the new Brianna Hildebrand movie. “Huh?” “You know, Negasonic Teenage Warhead from those Deadpool movies.” “Uh, yeah, okay, guess I hadn’t heard about it.”

A lot of people were in that boat, apparently, as Stuber opened with a dismal $8.2 million. This isn’t B-Level Central Intelligence territory. It’s a solid F. Kumail Nanjiani will be fine as he’s someone’s who’s floated around as “Oh yeah, that guy” for years and can continue to do so. The Batista as an A-List Actor campaign may be called off due to voter apathy.

Next, Hollywood tried a third (fourth if you count the Indie film Midsommar) horror flick in four weeks with Crawl. What are they, Netflix? Give us some time to breathe, people! We haven’t even caught up with your last few films, we’re not going to see these new ones. The alligator-crunching movie Crawl literally crawled to a $12 million debut and will likely at least double its $13 million budget by the time it’s out of theaters. Something Stuber will not be able to say.

Meanwhile, Toy Story 4 continued having play time slipping around 40% each weekend. Andy’s going to regret letting his toys go after they’ve accumulated $346.7 million without him. This looks like another lock for the Top Five. If that’s the case, we’ve likely got four films in the club (Avengers, Aladdin, Toy Story, and Spidey) leaving just room for one more new release to make the cut.

This week… The what-seems-like millionth Disney live-action remake comes to the theaters, The Lion King. Is it even “live-action” if everything is done in CGI. Did people even want this movie acted-out by real looking animals since, you know, real animals don’t sing and dance and bob their heads to the rhythm of music. Maybe I’m just thrown-off because I thought Aladdin would be misstep and Lion King would be a sure-thing, so if I was wrong about Aladdin it would only make sense for me to be wrong about Lion King. Me being wrong is about the only thing I’m never wrong about. We’ll find out this weekend if The Lion King is a major motion picture event like Beauty and the Beast or something streaming on Vudu in two months like Dumbo.